The Disaster Before Christmas
by Seitei
Summary: Master Hand needs to hold the annual Christmas party. Problem? No budget. Solution? People on the grounds who have nothing better to do. Oneshot.


"Alright, now put the mistletoe over there. No, not there! Up by the entrance to the dining room for maximum effect!"

It was the night before Christmas (which many had avoided saying in front of the younger fighters, for that meant any effort at putting up decorations would be undone), and everyone was in a hurry to get the mansion looking its best for the winter holidays. To add to the stress, the mansion always invited the nearby townspeople for the grand annual Christmas party. Of course, Master Hand's budget remained practically nonexistent (Crazy Hand had somehow bought ten thousand rolls of toilet paper from "generous benefactors" a few weeks ago; no one knows to this day where those rolls are), and so, as a result, all matches were suspended until further notice so that all Smashers could help get everything ready before the first guests showed up. At the rate they were going, they wouldn't be finished until the party itself was. The foyer was a mess. Wrapping paper and ornaments of various shapes and sizes littered the floor like Advance Christmas Wars™. In the middle was a gigantic Douglas Fir with decorations sloppily slapped on. The star lay next to it, forgotten in the midst of all the chaos.

It didn't help matters that there were a few who despised the thought of good cheer and mingling with the "common folk." Ganondorf grumbled at being unable to slide his fingers across the mahogany railings adorning the stairs, which now had snakes of green artificial frills running across them. Wario hated being clean ("After all," said Master Hand, "we need good public relations, so Peach will be helping you get appropriately dressed… and not smell like a dead rat. Don't give her a hard time."), and was already developing a rash from the lack of crusty skin flakes. King Dedede was beside himself. The day before last Master Hand asked him if it was ok to lend a few thousand DedeDollars. How dare a large talking disembodied hand talk to him that way! Now his entire holiday was ruined.

"Alright, now we have some bells to put up. Red, you take that side, and Marth, you take the other." Fox was among the few who were in charge of putting stuff up. However, as much as his experience as a leader made the mansion a lot more festive that it would have been, the stress was going up to his head. He turned around and unscrewed the bottle of aspirin set out on the table next to him. There was only a quarter left. He frowned. He had only taken five this entire time. Turning to his left, he saw the source of their disappearance. Wolf, also leading decorations, slipped one into his mouth. As much as Fox wanted to throttle his nemesis, getting the décor up was top priority. Besides, Wolf definitely needed them more than Fox. Unlike the leader of Star Fox, he was not getting a lot of cooperation. Pit had his own ideas about the boughs of holly that were supposed to wrap around the posts of each staircase.

"Hey, stop it!" shouted Wolf. The hyperactive angel began to wrap them around the chandeliers, which creaked ominously as the screws holding it up began to moan from unneeded spinning. "Pit, listen to me!"

"Oh, don't be such a killjoy, Wolf. This is gonna be pretty!" He flapped his wings quicker now, as he swooped down to grab some stray sleigh bells on the ground. As he began to rise back up in the air, he heard a click somewhere from down below. Wolf raised his blaster and was aiming at the back of Pit's head.

"No. Do the job you were supposed to do." Pit stuck out his tongue. _No one does that to Wolf O'Donnell._ Wolf bared his teeth. Reacting quickly, Pit threw up his reflective shield, which protected him from the incoming shot. As he peeked from behind his protector, he laughed.

…until he heard the shatter of glass and felt tiny shards raining on him. The chandelier took the brunt of the laser and was now moaning louder than before. "Oh, save me Palutena," he squeaked.

----

Meanwhile, Peach, Samus and Zelda were in charge of the festivities. The dining room was beautifully decorated, with holly running down the pillars like slides, candy canes (which had to be child-proofed) dangled from the ceiling, and baubles of all different sizes and colours casted different hues of light from the walls.

Peach flipped through the little book they had used to keep track of all the details. "All right, let's go over this one more time. First we're going to have the welcoming committee by the door—"

"Marth, Roy, Link, and Pit," mumbled Zelda.

"—the food out by 7:10, awards ceremony at 9:30…"

"Wow, Peach, you sure have this entire party sorted out," said Samus. She didn't know why she was here. _Rather be out there, decorating,_ she thought. Samus never understood how Peach managed to keep track of everything. From when each event starts to what everyone is wearing, she managed it all.

"Now, as for what everyone will be wearing—"

But what they were going to wear, neither Zelda nor Samus found out, because at that moment, a loud crash came from the foyer. "What was that?!" gasped Peach. As the three women entered the foyer, Peach let out a high-pitched scream that could have shattered the glass chandeliers above.

In front of them was a chandelier that was definitely not on the ceiling. Both Pit and Wolf gazed it, mouths agape.

"Who did this?!" Everyone turned and cringed when they saw Peach. They knew how into Christmas she was. "I'm going to make sure this is the best Christmas party ever! And you're either with me, or against me!" they heard her say. She walked over to he sprinkled shards, fuming. "Who. Did. This?" Wolf and Pit slowly backed away, acting as inconspicuous as possible, but escaping from Homicidal Peach was near impossible.

"You two," she spat, glaring at them with intense hatred. She grabbed Pit by his right wing. "To tell you the truth, I have had enough with your cute 'Oh, I'm an angel, and I will be the best helper ever!!!'" Pit moaned in pain as she flung him aside with astonishing brute force. "And you." Wolf gulped, backing away carefully. "I put you in charge of getting people to hang up decorations, and this is what I get?"

"Well," Wolf stammered. "I wasn't the only one—"

"No buts."

"But I didn't say—"

"You just did." Wolf sighed. He never won around here. He reached for an aspirin in his pocket, because the headache he had right now was not going to go away. Without warning, Peach swiped it from his mouth. "Is this why everything's a complete disaster?! You're taking this on the job?!"

"That's just an aspi—"

"What are you going to do if the kids get a hold of this stuff? Hmm? That's it. You're off the job. GO." She pointed towards the stairs. The canine walked back up to his room hurriedly as not to incur any further wrath from the princess. In fact, he was glad that this was over with.

Everyone watched as the princess' fists unclenched themselves. "Now let's fix all up guys," she said cheerfully. "We want to be ready in time, no?" A chill ran up Link's spine. How Peach could viciously chew someone out one minute and become a sweet little Girl Scout the next was beyond him. Whatever. He began to hoist the stream of bells that had fallen when Red and Marth jumped from the crash. An eager Lucas helped with the other end. Marth stared as the bell chain was fixed to the wall when he decided to fix the decorations that were askew along the branches of the tree.

The Smashers began to resume work. Everything was going well until the lights started shorting out. "Why are they—Pikachu!!" shouted Fox. He had just discovered the little rodent chewing on the wires which released tiny streams of electricity, causing the mouse Pokémon to squeal in pleasure. Then without warning, the lights all went out, showering the Smashers in darkness.

"Hey, someone turn the lights on!"

"I can't see!"

Then, there was another crash, resounding in the gloom. The sound of bells crashing into the ground was the first sign that something was horribly wrong. Screams echoed around and the sound of feet clattering on the floor. A few more crashes followed soon thereafter, each louder than the last, like a series of gunshots going off.

As what seemed to be the last crash subsided, all was silent. There was a soft buzzing in the air as the lights flickered back on. Master Hand had turned on the backup generator and had just flown in to see what the ruckus was about.

The foyer which everyone had worked so hard on was a battlefield. Shattered glass littered the floor, crushed baubles were strewn across the linoleum floor, shining in their ruin. But worst of all was the tree. Once standing majestically, it was now laying on its side, ornaments in disarray.

The sound of high-pitched squealing filled the air again. Fox gulped. Peach was crying. Tears ran down her face like little tadpoles. The bottle of aspirin was still there on the table, lying on its side. He could take a few small steps and reach out for it. No one would notice. As his fingers touched the bottle, the volume of Peach's crying increased and his fingers came down too early, pushing the bottle out of his reach. It rolled over to the other side, teetering on the edge before falling down with a clack.

Ike's ears were starting to hurt. Never once in his life had he heard anything as horrid as this banshee screaming. He half-ran towards the doors and opened them without much effort, hoping to escape to some quiet sanctuary where he could retain his sanity. What he did not expect, however, was that someone was already at the door.

It was Tom Nook, the residential raccoon. He looked puzzled and on a quest for answers. "Hey, Ike. What happened? And what is that god awful screaming?" Ike was definitely not in the mood for answering. He moved to the side, hoping to get past the persistent civilian, but to no avail. Tom continued to ask Ike until the swordsman gave up and told him everything.

"Gosh, I'm sorry. Is there anything I can do help?" Ike snorted. He really wanted to leave now.

"Yeah, yeah, sure, whatever," he said, hoping that would satisfy the raccoon's concern. It did and it didn't. As Ike left, Tom Nook had one of his ideas.

----

No one uttered a word as they swept up the mess. Marth grumbled as he swept a bunch of broken baubles into a bin. This was the worst Christmas party ever. The first moment he got, he was going to run back up to his room and rant about this in his journal, as he preferred to call it.

As the corner he was working on was done, he swore he heard a distant rumbling. He honestly hoped that it wasn't something else falling over; he had had enough of that.

"Hey guys!" Marth turned around and groaned. It was that Tom Nook character again. Why couldn't that animal be somewhere else? Now, he didn't mind the civilians, no, not one bit, but Tom, oh, Tom was a big exception. Very nosy, that raccoon. One time, Marth was out in the city, when he came along and started pestering the prince about what was really going on in brawls.

"Hi, Tom." Marth gave a forced smile. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Well, I heard that you guys were having some trouble, so… we came to help!"

"We?" Marth wondered. Tom nodded and pointed over his shoulder. Thousands of citizens were at their doorstep, wielding tools of some sort.

"Oh, Tom, we can't afford this kind of generosity!" Peach had appeared at Marth's side. Her tears had dried up, though there were still wet spots on Peach's usually unsoiled gloves.

"No worries, princess! Better for us to help than let a good party go to waste!" a Hammer Brother next to the raccoon shouted. Others cheered in agreement, and a few seconds later, the entire foyer was chockfull of hard-working volunteers, fixing the decorations at an alarming speed.

Finally, it was done. The ancient grandfather clock, situated between the two staircases, chimed twelve times, signalling midnight as the last bauble had been set up. "Hey guys!" Sonic shouted. "It's Christmas! Christmas is finally here!" Cheers erupted from the crowd.

"I can't thank you guys enough!" Peach flung her arms around Tom.

"No problem, princess!"

"Wait, well, what about the party?" asked Roy. Peach smiled.

"Well, I guess we can schedule some extra time in there somewhere. Say, now?"

----

By Christmas evening, the city surrounding the mansion was devoid of life. However, in the direction of the mansion, one could hear peals of laughter and see lights emanating from the place from miles on end.

"Mmm, this is pretty good!" said Ike, as he hogged out on the buffet. It was five tables long, and every twenty minutes it would be fully replenished by the hired caterers. Of course, his stomach was nothing compared to the insatiable appetite of Kirby, who quickly finished one table's worth of food in five minutes.

"May I have your attention, please?" Peach was in the foyer, standing on a podium with a microphone in her hands. Everyone turned their attention towards her. "This party wouldn't have happened without the help of everyone here. And as such, we have some new awards!"

Far above the crowd, Master Hand chuckled. In the end, everything turned out well. He watched as Kirby got an award for, well, being the Biggest Eater of the Year. Not that anyone else had a chance of getting it.

Well, there wasn't any chance of trouble, right? As that thought came to Master Hand's mind, some of the audience screamed as a grey blur flew around the room, bumping décor and almost knocking down the giant Christmas star onto Peach.

He sighed. Time for his brother's medication.

* * *

**I was going to originally submit this for SmashKing's contest, but uh, you know. Well, hope you guys enjoyed this little oneshot!  
**


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